Suspense Thriller Metaphor

 

Merry Christmas, dude. I don’t know if it’s just me or is everyone also getting a real difficulty finding a good Christmas Movie this year? Anyway, I ended up watching “Die Hard,” the first one. Although the movie is a “one man kicks bad guys’ ass” kinds of movie, it was packaged in a Christmas theme nonetheless, ha-ha (yea, whatever…). It made me realize that, apparently, I do love to watch that kinds of movies be it 24, Die Hard, Hostages, etc.

Those movies are often involving several characters in common and I can name five of them. FIRST, there are the hostages, the ones who are helpless. SECOND, we have the reporters, whose purpose solely is to get the news. THIRD, there are cops, FBI, and whatnot who are standing outside the building and do the thinking. FOURTH, we have the perpetrators, the bad guys who are inside the building and getting what they want. LASTLY, we finally see the hero who is sneaking inside the ventilation pipe to rescue the hostages, from the inside; these are the Jack Bauer or the John McLane kind of guys.

What makes it cool to talk about these five kinds of peoples is that each of them actually represents our real everyday life situations if we look closer. Through the following metaphor you’ll see my point. And after that you can identify which people you do belong to.

[WORD OF CAUTION: by the following metaphor, I do not intend to degrade any of the professions mentioned. This is only my opinion based on the movies I’ve seen and some of my general knowledge. And the following should not be viewed as any medical or professional opinion whatsoever. For God sake, I’m just a guy!]

5. THE HOSTAGES.

These are the helpless people. They need (or at least feel that they need) help from others. They are generally portrayed as dependent on each other. They are afraid. They are confined of their liberty and often perceived as victims of the kidnapping.

When we look at our real life, those characteristics might be familiar, hell; we even might be one of them at a certain stage in our life. Sometimes we let social conditioning, others’ opinions of ourselves, etc define what we should do; therefore we are deprived of our freedom. I bet you can think of times when your parents decide what you should be or what you should do; when your partners tell us the dress we should wear, or when you blame them for your unhappiness (Oh isn’t this familiar…). Hostages are people who are acting like victims, love to blame everything on the situation, and afraid to act. These persons often are approval-seeking, and define themselves by how others treat them.

So, what’s the key here, what makes these hostages are different from other types? The key characteristic is they put the responsibility to take care of themselves in others’ hands.

4. THE REPORTERS.

This people are generally portrayed as some selfish dudes who are at the scene only to gather some news to sell. These are people who take advantage from the situations. Although their presence often does not produce direct disadvantages to others, especially the hostages, nonetheless they only think about their own interest in the process. They also do not really look at the deepness or the essence of the situation, instead, only the surface. Why? It is because of the urgency to take advantages as soon as possible.

When it comes to our real life, these are the value taker people in our lives. They only think about what’s in it for them, and then gone after they finish sucking value of any situations. Because of the urgency to take the values as soon as possible, sometimes they forget to look the situation deeper. These people often don’t live their life by code, and they don’t have any spiritual purpose to make the world a better place for living (I know, I know it sounds a bit “too much,” I’m kind of finding the right way to say it).

Apparently, even many kinds of the modern educational institutions nowadays teach these kinds of lifestyle, not to mention Law Schools (the one I’m in right now, ha-ha). “Tell others what they want to hear; don’t have to pursue your code/destiny/idealism blah-blah-blah… Take the money, and go,” that’s what we are often told to do.

The key characteristic is that “the reporters” kind of persons focusing their life on what they can take/suck out of this life, instead of what they can give.

3. THE LAW ENFORCEMENT DUDES (The Cops, the Feds, the Negotiators, etc).

These are the guys who feel that they’re the one responsible to put the situation under control. Why? It is because of their status/profession as law enforcement dudes. However, this kind of awareness sometimes produces ego, a lot of it, and it clouds their judgments. They love to interact with each other using the chains of command language, to show who is more superior to other. Even though they are working for the safety of the hostages, sometimes their ego clouds their view of situation and also their intuition, and makes it harder for them to decide the right thing to do. They’re also sometimes portrayed as the ones who are thinking too much.

In our real life, a university lecturer who loves to talk on and on about his/her great achievement for hours can fall into this category, along with the self-righteous scholar (or smart ass?) who loves to use magic vocabulary and terms more than is needed in order to convey his/her knowledge to the world. They strive for the sake of others, the nation, the world, or whatever, but they don’t realize that in the process they let their ego get in the way. And sometimes their ego (self-image) prevents them to take action because if they failed then their self-image towards others will be jeopardized, so they only brag about their achievements (the achievements they got when their conscience was still pure) and criticize the current situation. It is only natural for someone with such a huge ego to protect it.

The key to this category is, they use their skill, profession, talent, along with their ego, to do the right thing.

2. THE PERPETRATORS (The Bad Guys!).

Actually it is kind of hard to define what really the perpetrators are all about. It is because based on my research (in the forms of watching countless movies; of course), there are so many kind of bad guys. Therefore in this piece of writing, I’m not covering all psychological aspects of the perpetrators, only the essential parts.

Perpetrators basically are the ones who do what they think are right, in their point of view. It is often conveyed that perpetrators sometimes were initially good guys, but in a certain stage of their lives they became victims of something (be it molestation, their parents murdered, etc) and their lives have never been the same again from then on. Those kinds of thing put some seeds of hatred in their heart and actually made them bad guys who hate certain kinds of people, or even just anyone. They don’t care about others right, others life, etc…

When it comes to real life, the bad guys show themselves in the forms of manipulative friends or others. They have their own objectives. But in essence, they don’t care if by accomplishing those means hurting others in the process.

The key characteristic of the perpetrators is that at a certain point in their lives they were violated or even deprived of their own rights. And it grew hatred inside their hearts to make the situation even with the world.

AND FINALLY… THE HERO!

This is the coolest part of the movie. A Hero often portrayed as someone who has his/her own feelings, issues, and problems. In the 24, Jack Bauer has his own personal issues with his only child, kimberly, while doing his job. Also John McLane in Die Hard with his wife, Donnie Brasco with his family, and the list is endless. But the distinctive characteristic is that they do the right thing in spite of their own issues, and that really what courageous is all about! They also have high intuition, less ego, and affection towards humanity in general. So they are putting their life to protect others.

When it comes to real life, what a hard job it is, to find a person who is courageous, put his/her ego aside, and has the purpose of helping others. All my life (as I’m writing this one, I am 20 years old) I haven’t met a single person who fits the criteria directly. Fortunately, some of them show themselves in the forms of motivators, gurus, policemen, and whatnot, and they teach me a lot of things through the books, seminars, life stories, poems, etc. It’s just I’ve never met them in person.

The key of a hero is courage, doing the right things in spite of personal issues to make the world a better place!

 

 

CONCLUSION

“…The truth is, everybody is only doing their best with what they have in their lives… ” – Mike Dooley (The author of “Infinite Possibilities”)

I believe that the above quotation is so true, every single one of them, the hostages, perpetrators, reporters, law enforcement dudes, and the hero. They all have their own issues, and they all have choices.

You and I, too, have choices. So ask this to yourself, what will have you been by the end of the year 2010?

Until then, Merry Christmas, I love you.

 

Just a guy who is learning how to be courageous,

Ganda.

~ by gandzhutagalung on December 26, 2009.